Energy Agenda (from December 2020)

• Kickoff -  5 minutes   Jeff & Randy
  • Randy to share big picture of ag diagram, think about how energy fits in
  • Focus on the business issues today - steer wide of tech solutions at least to start
• Introductions around the table
• Intro to Ag Gateway – 5 minutes - Brent Kemp
• Pain Point discussion – lead by our group ~60 minutes
  • Start with identified list:
    • logistics - shipping, transport, ship docs, BoL (wholesale and retail)
    • meter reading and tank tracking, (where are they, how much is in them - lessons learned from bulk and how that applies for customer implementation/customer data - something actionable versus informational - delivery trigger/keep full)
    • integration with existing supply chain data,
    • invoicing (multi-level; wholesale and retail)
  • Open to the group for more discussion, issue identification
• Assign Priorities – Jeff & Randy  15 minutes
• Next steps – (Discussion of next call agenda, further brainstorming and introduction of tech solutions, etc.)  Brent Kemp  - 15 minutes

Jeff Griffeth (Co-Alliance) and Randy Fry (Ceres Solutions)

   Randy Fry brought up the big picture for energy, planning and production, sales, customer operations, transportation, growers, etc. The data flow with combines leads to in field production changes, and would like to have some of that data flow back to the energy manufacturers to find out how use is going. Think about what data flows through the system and how it can be made more efficient and accurate. 

  Participants introduced their organizations and their current efforts in the energy sector, or what they would like to accomplish in energy.

  Brent Kemp explained the function and mission of AgGateway, and the purpose of the Meet Up process to determine industry pain points, which can develop into the Working Group format to help create a functional response to those points. 

  Jacob Crow shared an overview of Growmark's data interaction in retail and distribution, and how the company sees it moving forward in the future. Covering the end to end supply chain capabilities. (Reference graphic will be posted alongside the wiki) Project 44 is used for Supply Chain visibility. PeopleNet is an in truck system for load tracking and system integration, as well as electronic BoL. In Bound load arrival notifications are just starting, allowing customers to know when loads are arriving. EDC (energy decision center) allows a system wide overview of all bulk tanks. Home Heat customers have been interested in tank monitors (Tank monitors not just on bulk tanks, but every tank). A lot of questions around customer access to information via apps and website. 

  Brent opened the discussion for what would make the picture more complete? Obvious gaps

     Meters:
    - Jean Bowen (River Valley Coop) brought up data/weather/forecasting demand. They have increased the number of monitors with home heat customers, and it has driven a significant increase in efficiencies in routing and deliveries. It allows them to not have to calculate things day to day. 

         -Natasha Lilly - how is this automated? Is it something already accomplished?

         - Jean - Yes, it's automated in our EnergyForce. It's set up to trigger deliveries when energy tanks are at a certain level. There's a cost to it, there is a monthly fee for the meters, but it's felt like it is worth it in the end and benefits the business. 

   - Greg Baldwin - possibly out of scope for this, the fuel tax reporting on a state basis being done at the wholesale and retail level. It's a hurdle for retailers getting that reported properly to the state

   - Keith Milburn - recognize the energy business is 365 days a year and may be different than some of the ag spaces. The customer segments would be ag, commercial, residential, and understanding their different needs

    -Jacob Crow - you do have to have a way to digest that information that you collect from meters etc. There has to be the motivation to trust and listen to the information the monitors provide

   For meters - can you get to data that's actionable, or just informational? Would information be consistent coming off the sensors. Some do great for bulk but not home delivery and vice versa. How could there be a consistent formatting for that to move it to actionable content rather than just looking at a dashboard

Logistics:

  Howard Jones - Not sure it's a super high pain point, but there is a lot of data entry to get that on the supply side. If you're dealing with different suppliers, integration is an issue. How can it be the same across all those platforms?

     Natasha Lilly - we want to bring in every product electronically and move away from paper BoL. I think everyone can appreciate those benefits

     Jeff Griffeth - there's just the time lag of information flow from the time it's ordered to pick up, the BoL notifications back to the retailer. We're making a small margin on this stuff in a lot of cases, so we want to bill it quickly and get paid quickly. There has to be a lot of pain in that whole process, logistically. 

     Key Coop - the BoL is a very hands on tedious approach to bring all of these in, and the billings that go with it. A more efficient way of doing that would be appreciated. We've worked on it on the seed side, but there are issues on the income side of the supply chain. We work with EnergyForce on the supply side, but there might be ways to make is seamless all the way through. 

     Jean Bowen - it hasn't been a real issue for River Valley. I haven't heard many concerns with BoL and those types of issues. 

     Tracy Soper (Harvest Land) - I think that it would be even more needed in things like greases and lubes, as there's more product. It saves time and accuracy. 

Jeff Griffeth asked if someone could walk through the process of fuel ordering to delivery. What are automated? What are still paper? It sounds like pricing is still posted somewhere where someone has to get it manually, while it is electronic it still has to be looked for. How much is still a manual process?

   Greg Fish - Pricing and orders are done electronically. We track shipments electronically. A lot of it is done in EDI/204 messages or some type of proprietary format. As good as EDI is, it could benefit from an upgrade. Most messages are flowing in some electronic format. 

    Belinda Puetz - Countrymark provides member pricing, member pricing goes out via email at 6pm and is then posted so buyers can look at either format to see daily pricing. BoLs and invoices are posted on an app so members can download BoLs and invoices there. 

   Howard Jones - Our customers get their information how they want it. Some want it it automatically. Some want to request it. On the energy side the automation isn't really there

   Tracy Soper - from our side it's still manual, there's not a lot of automation there. There's a lot of paperwork still going on there

   Belinda Puetz - I've heard from members that the pricing is fairly user friendly with excel spreadsheets that members can manipulate to create their own pricing, but BoLs are PDFs so maybe there's a better way to do that?

   Randy Fry - from the seed side, we take about a thousand BoLs on our side, and we can pull that into our system electronically in less than a minute a piece. We've taken that from a five minute process to down to less than a minute process. We've taken the data entry errors out of it. We've taken the shrink out of it, as a lot of our shrink was on the data entry side. Price sheets is another example. We're working to do some Crop Protection stuff, which is kind of like Energy. Seed is an MSRP and we discount from that, it's easy. We can do a price load as often as we want. On the Energy side and Crop Protection, we just pull our wholesale cost in then we would have to have a hands on to do retail price. Automation removes the issue of miscalculating off a bad entry.

Tracy Soper: Trying to tie internal tracking to supplier tracking is another area that's interesting to think about. 
     Belinda: I agree. 

Brent asked if there was anything there around signature requirements that might be slowing down a process and might need addressing. 

Randy asked for feedback from Agvantage, Agvance, EFC

     Greg Baldwin - energy clients that use our device in the truck, most of the data comes from the driver and is implemented from the driver. We've got route mapping and give them a daily route of what to do and optimize on meter reading and tank tracking. The logistics part has me puzzled. We might load from our retail inventory, but we load from the rack as well. We don't ever get notified of a BoL or a shipment of product. Our retailer's trucks just go load that product, then we back in. It's a flip of thinking from a retailer standpoint that's different from agronomy or seed. It's a pull initiated process, not a push process. I could see us possibly needing to do backwards B2B and send up the PO on inventory that we've already dropped. That's the perspective we've got built in to truck software right now to drive that.

    Chuck Bohanon - we do the same stuff as far as shipping and logistics. We have had some customers that deliver to larger retailers (Walmarts etc) for fuel that have to send invoices in a proprietary format in order for them to accept those invoices and send out pricing. That might be an area for benefit. Consistent invoicing and consistent pricing where that can be emailed out. 
   Pam Rinker - The focus is on the retail side of the process, the vendors. How many of those players, all the vendors, would need to come to the table for electronic messaging? It sounds valuable.
       Randy - it sounds a lot like you're talking about a standard message that can be used from wholesale to retail.

Randy requested info from retailers on the call for an idea of vendors that are dealt with. Most indicate that it varies based on product, but averages about three to five vendors.

Jeff Griffeth questioned how orders were placed from the retailers:

   Howard Jones: for fuel it's easy, they show up and take it.

   Jacob Crow: From the terminals they pick up from, it's when the pick up happens. A lot order for delivery, but there are just as much that are a pick up. There are a number of different programs for people that do delivery, and different pricing programs for the scenarios

  Paula: the only thing we place orders for are lubricants and grease. Fuels are just picked up at the terminals as needed 
       Randy: When it's created, does the BoL have a destination on it or is it generic?
       Paula: It's specific
       Jeff: How do they know when that hits inventory? How do you know to generate an invoice? 
       Paula: The driver picks up an invoice, and then there is an electronic invoice generated later. It isn't electronically submitted. It's still all manually billed and put into inventory that way. It isn't automated. 

   Randy asked if there was any desire for demos on how things are done on the seed side to see if it can apply to the energy side in order to help lay groundwork for what might work. Reach out to Brent Kemp or Randy with ideas

   think about inefficiencies that you experience on a daily basis

Next meeting is scheduled for 28 Jan 2021 at 9:00 am Chicago time.